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Rich Fields
Richard Wayne "Rich" Fields (born November 30, 1960 in Bay Village, Ohio) is a Television Personality and announcer. He served as an intern announcer on Wheel of Fortune for the weeks of November 22-December 13, plus the week of January 31, having the second-longest run of tryouts for any of the intern announcers. Rich began as a radio host at KCBS-FM in Los Angeles, later working as an announcer at Universal Studios in Hollywood. He also performed announcing duties on Florida's lottery game show Flamingo Fortune (1995-99), filling in as host for at least one episode. He also hosts California's annual academic challenge in Coachella Valley. Fields' most famous work was announcer of The Price is Right from 2004-2010, a role which he repeatedly stated was his "dream job" after watching original announcer Johnny Olson (coincidentally, he and current Wheel announcer Jim Thornton both spent some time as guest announcers on Price following the death of Rod Roddy before Fields was chosen). Rich appears to have either had a fan following already or gained one very quickly after his first appearance, as the president of his fan club was called down about a month into Fields' tenure. Shortly after being hired, the podium his predecessors worked from was disposed of; rather than see it destroyed, he retrieved the podium and put it on display in his home. He also handled hosting and announcing duties of the 2008 and 2010 video game versions of Price for the Nintendo Wii and DS gaming consoles. One of his trademarks is that he is especially popular with female contestants and fans of Price, with his good looks and charming personality. One example is when a female contestant was called down wearing a shirt that read "I <3 Rich Fields"; when asked what she loved the most about him, she claimed she didn't know and joked that she only wore the shirt to get chosen, causing him to growl and say he was foiled. He even traced the shape of his head with both of his fingers. Unfortunately, Rich became somewhat disliked by fans during the first half of Season 37, when he became the subject of many "Drewcases" (Showcases written by host Drew Carey) that made him look like either a jerk or a joke. Following Season 38, he was fired due to unspecified reasons only described as "a mess of his own making and didn't have anything to do with The Price is Right (TMZ claimed he was a victim of identify theft, while someone claiming to be a close friend said that "he was getting tired, having too many personal problems"). (Additionally, around the same time, his father passed away.) It is known that FremantleMedia extremely disliked him for unknown reasons, wanting him gone when Bob Barker left in 2007, and that executive producer Mike Richards wanted an improv comedian to interact with Carey; George Gray, host of the daytime/syndicated Weakest Link, ultimately got the job. Rich's most recent work was announcing on Drew Carey's Improv-a-Ganza, which ran on GSN for a few months in 2011. He is now currently a part-time meteorologist at KCBS2 and KCAL9 in Los Angeles, but he is doing very well. One of his future goals is to host his own game show very soon. Gallery Rich_at_Podium.jpg rich3.jpg richposes.jpg Category:Announcers Category:People